Motivational App Lift Is Literally Changing My Life

I've fallen in love with an iPhone app called Lift. Its helped me solve a tough problem: how to stay motivated in building new good habits and while ditching old bad habits.

I'm actually a pretty motivated person. I work out, floss my teeth, and eat healthy (at least most of the time). But there seems to be a motivational glass ceiling when I try to do much bigger changes in my life.

Not sure how it works for you, but for me it works like this:

I vow to myself to stop doing something like snacking on cheese. It's high in fat and my body doesn't love dairy. Or I vow to myself to start doing something like spending 15 minutes a day meditating.

Then I do it for a day or so and then life happens and I find myself home at night with a plate of cheese and crackers in front of me, or I find myself getting to the end of the day realizing that I didn't meditate, and am too tired to try.

Enter Lift. You download the app (free, Android, or iPhone, or sign up on the website) and then you join a challenge. The challenge is lead by a "Lift coach." Other like-minded individuals also join the challenge. Then you check in every day and you all create the new habit, or stop the old habit, together.

Lift is a San Francisco startup that was incubated in Obvious Corp, which is operated by some of Twitter's founders. It has raised $2.5 million from investors such as RRE*, Spark Capital and SV Angel.

In December, I joined the 25 for 25 Challenge. The challenge is to workout every day for at least 25 minutes from December 1 - 25, to counteract the calorie-laden party month with extra activity. I work out regularly but, until this month, not every day.

I told a few friends about the challenge and they signed up, too.

We're half-way through and I haven't missed a day. One time, I got home from a party at 11:30 p.m. and still got on my bike trainer and pedaled. (I thought, "It's only 25 minutes. No excuses.")

Would I have done that without Lift? No.

You can join all kinds of challenges: Health things like flossing your teeth, eating more veggies, stopping nail biting, using your Fitbit. Personal development things like writing, meditating, daily de-cluttering. Fitness things like training for a race, building strength, learning new Yoga poses.

Page 2 of 2 - I realize that we're knee-deep into the holiday season, weeks before New Year's resolutions. But when the time comes, consider adding some motivation to your life through your iPhone, tablet or PC.